Thursday, May 4, 2017

Comey: We’re Talking with Two Sets of Prosecutors for Trump-Russia Case

Comey Confirms FBI Is Coordinating with Two Sets of Prosecutors

Here’s an exchange you may have missed during Monday’s Senate hearing with FBI Director James Comey. Some three hours into the hearing, Comey elucidated on the FBI’s investigative process, and told Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono that his team is working with two sets of prosecutors for the Trump-Russia case. In the transcript below, I’ve made minor edits to syntax for clarity:

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI):

A number of us have called for an independent investigator, or special prosecutor, to investigate the Russian efforts to undermine or to interfere with our elections, as well as the Trump team’s relationship with these efforts. Should the Department of Justice decide that there should be such an independent investigator, or special prosecutor, and you already have an ongoing FBI investigation into these matters, and the Attorney General has already secured himself — so how would this proceed? When you have the Department of Justice conducting, or assigning, an independent or special prosecutor and then you’re already doing an investigation—how would this work?

FBI Director Comey:

Our investigative team would just coordinate with a different set of prosecutors. It’s as if the case was just moved from one U.S. attorney’s office to another. The investigative team just starts working with a different set of investigative attorneys.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI):

So the two investigations could proceed, but you could talk to each other —

FBI Director Comey:

Right. It’s one investigation. And the strength of the justice system, at the Federal level in the United States is, the prosecutors and the agents work together on their investigations. So the investigators would disengage from one prosecutor and hook up to another and just continue going.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI):

So in the investigations that you’re currently doing, on the Russia interference and the Trump team’s relationship, are you coodinating with any U.S. attorney’s office?

FBI Director Comey:

Yes. Two sets of prosecutors. Main: Justice, the national security division. And the eastern district of Virginia U.S. attorney’s office.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI):

So should [the DOJ] decide to go with a special prosecutor, then you would end your engagement with these other two entities and work with the DOJ?

FBI Director Comey:

Potentially. Or it could be that, in some circumstances, an Attorney General appoints someone else to oversee it, and you keep the career-level prosecutive (sic) team. And so to the prosecutors and the agents, there’s no change–except the boss is different.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI):

If I could just ask one more follow-up question. Has this happened before, where you’re doing an investigation and the Attorney General appoints a special prosecutor to conduct the same investigation?

FBI Director Comey:

It happened to me when I was in what I thought was my last job ever in the government, as deputy Attorney General — and I appointed Patrick Fitzgerald, then the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, to oversee a very sensitive investigation involving allegations that Bush administration officials outed a CIA operative. And so what happened is the team of agents that had been working up the chain that came to me, was just moved over and [they] worked under Fitzgerald.